Advanced users of Excel will be able to use all sorts of tricks and formulas to manipulate, analyse and present data. Sometimes however, no matter how well you know the ins and outs of Excel functionality, there will be a need to do something which will leave you stumped and feeling helpless. Where does the go-to person go when they are the expert in the office? The answer is of course, the internet.

How To Get The Best Out Of Excel With The Internet
Advanced users of Excel will be able to use all sorts of tricks and formulas to manipulate, analyse and present data. Sometimes however, no matter how well you know the ins and outs of Excel functionality, there will be a need to do something which will leave you stumped and feeling helpless. This is particularly annoying when the challenge is something outside of your comfort zone. It is difficult when you are everyone's go-to person. Where does the go-to person go when they are the expert in the office? The answer is of course, the internet.

I once sent an Excel sheet to a colleague, which consisted of a huge list of contacts and details. I asked them to highlight which ones were required and which ones were not. What I should have done was added an extra column and asked them to put an X against each row that was no longer required so I could easily use that column to filter out the redundant records. The problem with being the expert is that you sometimes forget that everybody else is not thinking along the same lines. The colleague sent the worksheet back with everything to be deleted highlighted in bright green. It was time to take a tea break.

I could have sent the worksheet back and asked the person to do it again. I could have gone through and done it myself, but it would have taken a long time and not been great for our relationship. Instead I searched 'Count rows with background colour in excel formula' on Google and found hundreds of websites dealing with the same problem. The good thing about researching such problems is that you very quickly realise that many, many people have already had the same problem and dealt with it. A lot of them are kind enough to share the solution. This particular problem had plenty of VBA functions already written and it was simply a case of cutting and pasting the code.

The internet is an invaluable source of information for all kinds of problems and solutions with Excel. Mostly I can find what I am looking for with a simple search using a search engine. It is also possible to take a more direct approach by joining one of the expert websites which include a forum. There are many websites, some free, some not, which will allow you to post questions where you will be able to get responses from the various experts that use the site. This may be a slower solution since you will need to wait for various responses, but when people do reply, the answers are usually concise and just what you require. It is also possible to have a conversation via continual posting if the solution needs tweaking.

One website I have used in the past is http://www.experts-exchange.com. Please bear in mind that websites change frequently and this link may not be currently working. As well as various experts posting help on the internet, Microsoft themselves have plenty of information to help you on their own products. Often Microsoft will be the top entry on Google with information on your problem. With the invention of YouTube it is sometimes even possible to view videos showing you how to implement a solution. Many people put videos or step by step instructions with screen shots so that a researcher will not have to rely on pages of text.

It is therefore important to remember that there are many ways for users to get help when becoming stuck on an Excel problem. In my opinion nobody should use the internet in this way as a method of learning the programme from scratch. It will be confusing and difficult to decipher what is a good solution that will work for you and what is not and does not provide a good level of support when learning the basics. Instead, this method is helpful for advanced users with a decent background knowledge of the package that merely need an extra bit of help every now and again.